How to Make Almond Flour

We have been looking for other alternatives to flour and one that I have read excellent things about for baking recipes is almond flour. Priced between $6 and $10 per pound it isn’t a possibility for our current budget so I started looking into how to make almond flour ourselves.

Whole almonds can be purchased at Sam’s Club for $10 for a 3lb bag – that breaks down to $3.33 per pound. The problem with those almonds are that they come with the skin on {which is the healthiest way to eat almond!} BUT ground up almonds with skin on isn’t almond flour. {It’s actually called almond meal!}

The solution is to blanch the whole almonds, which leaves the almonds skins simple to slip off! This process is really simple, and children can easily step in to help peel the almonds.

You can purchase blanched almonds at the grocery store, but at a price of $5-6 per pound. If you prefer to buy blanched almonds skip down to read how to make almond flour. Otherwise read on for blanching your own almonds!

How to Blanch Almonds

You will need:

Almonds
Pot of boiling water
Large slotted spoon
Ice
Water
Colander
Large bowl
Clean tea towels

{I like to work in one cup increments to keep it manageable. You could probably work with more, but I haven’t tried that.}

Set a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil. While waiting tor the water to boil set the large bowl in the sink and add ice and water to the bowl and set the colander inside the ice bath. {If you don’t have a bowl large enough to hold a colander you can either skip the colander or set the ice bath up in the sink itself.} Lay out clean tea towels beside the sink for later.

Once water is boiling add the one cup of almonds to the water and leave in for one minute. After one minute remove almonds with a slotted spoon. If you’re going to be repeating with more almonds leave the water to boil, otherwise turn off.

Place the blanched almonds in the colander in the ice bath. Once they are cool to the touch {takes seconds} remove the colander from the ice bath.

Working with one almond at a time slip the skin off each almond. It sounds tedious but goes super quick. You’ll find your favorite way for doing it after a few tries – I like using my first finger and thumb to slip it off.

Lay the newly naked almonds on a tea towel to dry. {I happened to be in a hurry and aided in the drying process by patting dry with a second tea towel.}

Now that the almonds are blanched it’s time to make almond flour!

How to Make Almond Flour

You will need:

Blanched Almonds
Blender
Coffee grinder
Air tight container

We have a Blendtec Blender and love it. In fact, the other day I learned that it keeps track of the amount of times you have used it, so I checked and in the two years we have owned it we’ve operated it well over 2,000 times!! I can’t vouch for the results from other blenders.

Measure out approximately 1 cup of whole, blanched almonds and place in blender. Pulse for about 30 seconds. It should be well ground up. Almost, but not quite, a flour like consistency.

Move to an airtight container and pulse all blanched almonds in 1 cup increments until all the almonds are done.

To make a finer almond flour consistency take a thoroughly cleaned out coffee grinder {we use this simple coffee grinder} and grind the pulsed almond mixture. All done!

Because our coffee grinder is small {holds about 1/2 cup} I keep the almost-almond-flour in an air tight container until I need to use it for baking and then I measure out what I need and grind what is needed, remeasure {grinding slightly changes the measurement} and bake.

My goal was to work with the kitchen accessories we already owned. I am sure there are better ways do this, but I am thrilled with the results using the tools we already had on hand.

Having never purchased store bought almond flour I can’t accurately compare this to store bought, but the cookies, bread and buns I have made with this homemade almond flour have all been delicious with no trace of unground flour in it.

So far I have just followed recipes that were made for almond flour. I'll share some in the next week or so
We are trying to eliminate most grains from our daily diet (apart from soaked oatmeal) because we see it affecting Wesley – both his ability to pay attention and his stomach pain/gas.
We went an entire month without grain and saw a huge difference, but we miss the baked goods, which is why I have started using almond flour

Thank you for this! I have been searching around the net to find out why my almond flour was not fine (I left the skins on, doh!). I made almond meal instead of almond flour! Next time, I will try blanching them.